Customer Reviews

Xbox DVD Movie Playback Kit

5 star:		(124)
4 star:		(58)
3 star:		(25)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(28)

 

 

1) Get this Movie Playback Kit

2) Put the remote away in a drawer (you still need the receiver)

3) Enter the code for an RCA DVD Player into your universal remote

4) Use your universal remote to control your XBox without any custom programming!

Pros: Inexpensive & has features that high priced DVD players don't come with.
Cons: Hard to find one.
Overall: Great for Xbox gamers who want a High Quality DVD player for under [item price].

My info:

I bought my Xbox in the beginning of January right after I returned my GameCube console. I purchased the Xbox DVD kit about 2 months after from Amazon.com for [item price]. I already have a DVD player but I wanted this anyway. An actually it plays DVDs better then my regular DVD player. The remote is great in my opinion; it's comfortable, convenient, & filled with features.

What comes in the Kit?

The kit comes with the Xbox DVD Remote. The remote has the basic buttons; play, fast forward, rewind, play, stop, pause, up, down, left, right, select, 0-9, & menu. The remote also comes with some extras like 2x 4x, 6x, 8x, 16x, &32x Fast Forward and Rewind. It has a nice Zoom feature ranging from 2x, 4x, 6x, 8x, & 10x. A - B feature is also nice to have for repetitions of a scene, click A - B once for the beginning of the scene to repeat and push it one more time to end the scene, it will keep repeating until you press A - B again. 2 AAA batteries are required to be purchased separately. The range of the Remote is around 20 to 25ft.

The Receiver also is required to play DVDs. The receiver is a small maybe 2 by 2 inches black square. Where does it go? It plugs into any controller port. What does it do? The Receiver activates the DVD compatibility. How does it work? Plug the Receiver into a slot while the Xbox console is turned off. Insert a DVD into the drive and the movie will automatically boot up like a normal DVD player. The kit also comes with a simple instruction booklet.

So hows the picture & sound quality...?

The quality of this product was amazingly more then I hoped for, in fact its superb! The video playback was smooth, quiet, and vivid. The sound obviously depends on the speakers you have, sounds great on my Philips surround sound stereo system.

Do I recommend this product?

YES. This kit is great even if you already have a DVD player and want another. The Remote kit also doubles as a Audio player, you can use it to playback your Mp3 files on the hard drive, no messing with cords. Remember, you mainly purchased your Xbox for gaming and the DVD playback was just an extra, a great extra at that. This Microsoft DVD kit is definitely High Quality all the way, and thats why I recommend this product.

Hopefully Helped anyone this may concern.

Very functional, makes you feel like your Xbox is complete. As for the playback quality of the Xbox, couldn't tell the difference between it and the Pioneer DVC-302D that it kicked out of the shelf and being deployed to somewhere else within the house. Of course, you have to connect the Xbox to the Advanced AV pack or High Definition pack with an optical audio cable to get full Dolby Digital 5.1 and DTS, and S-Video or Component video inputs as well for video. Not too shabby overall, even considering the lack of eject and power buttons that some people are complaining about. Gotta get up from the couch sometimes. Good for blood circulation.

As mentioned by another reviewer, you can program your universal remote control with the codes for RCA DVD players and the Xbox IR receiver will respond to it. The power button on the universal remote still won't work though, because this particular button will be interpreted as the display button on the Xbox remote. Worth noting too, that my universal remote doesn't have an eject button.

A very cool feature that I found out when playing audio CDs: when the info button is pressed, the mood display in the left panel zooms in to fill the full TV screen. Instant 32" lava lamp! Kinda looks like a mood setting screensaver. Break out the candles, turn off the lights, and let Peter Gabriel crank out!

Lastly, any geek worth his remote will test this baby with the games. After all, it seems like some of the buttons in the gamepad are mapped in and have equivalent buttons in the remote, right? I popped in DOA3 and tried to control it through the remote, but alas, geek mojo ran out. The remote control does not function as a wireless gamepad.

Cut MS some slack people. They didn't include DVD functionality via the controllers for some very good reasons:

1) That DVD license is expensive. I'd rather have people who are going to use the XBox as a DVD player to be the ones to subsidise the cost, instead of EVERYONE having to do it, since I already have a DVD player.

2) Sony found out the hard way when they released the PS2 in Japan; a lot of people bought the console JUST for it's DVD playback features, and didn't buy games for it. Now, I'm sure a lot of you know the standard console economic paradigm: lose money on the hardware, make money on the software. Thus, Sony lost big bux when this happened. I can't blame Microsoft for wanting to make sure that doesn't happen with them.

3) This is a PROGRESSIVE SCAN DVD player, which means it's designed for higher quality pictures on HDTV. I don't believe a lot of DVD players on the market are capible of that. Seems like a good deal to me.

I've been suprisingly impressed with the XBox. The graphics are DEFINATELY a cut above the PS2 (which I also own.) I find it telling that the LAUNCH title graphics look better than Sony's latest PS2 games. The hard drive is damn convenient. If there is anything to be angry over, it's those poorly designed controllers (Hint: MadCatz makes a decent replacement.)

In the end, those who are serious about using the Sony as a DVD player are going to buy a remote control kit anyhow (I certainly did) This seems no different to me, in the long and short of it. Microsoft was upfront on the box when they said it required the additional kit. It seems to me that a lot of people giving out the one star are just general Microsoft bashers anyhow.

I was very disappointed when I found out that my Xbox did not play DVD's fresh out of the box. The growing trend of selling a system in pieces rather than shipping a complete system is one that I'm not very fond of. As much as these game systems cost, they should have everything you need right in the box.

While I loathed doing so, I eventually bought the DVD playback kit because I was going on a trip and wanted to be able to play movies and games during my down time. As it turns out, I like the Xbox so much as a DVD player that I now use it as my primary DVD player. My previous DVD player was an older model JVC and I've had tons of problems with it. It won't play some DVD's and I've had to take it to be repaired three times, twice in the first year I owned it.

I think the compaints in Amazons review are valid. The lack of an eject button or power button on the remote makes it less convenient, but I have to get up to change DVD's anyway so I don't find that much of a bother. I find the in-movie menu easy to use and an improvement over my JVC which basically makes me do the same thign when I want to change subtitles or lanuages. My biggest problem with the Xbox, and not as big as it may sound: for some reason it won't read some disks when you first put them it. This is easily cured by turning the system on and the off again, and it's only certain disks (Donnie Darko was one, Shreck was another) but I was concerned when it wouldn't read the disk and a bit irritated.

The main reson I replaced my JVC with my Xbox is that I think the picture is better, and clearer. With the HDTV cables hooked up, the picture quality on my Sony Wega is crystal clear. Good transfer DVD's like Star Wars TPM look absolutely incredible. I was really surprised at some of the cool high-end features like the ability to zoom. I can't find any documentation to prove that the Xbox is a progressive scan DVD player, but I do know that when you attach the HDTV cables you are given several options for progressive scan viewing in the video section. My TV is not HDTV compatible (although it has component hookups) and I could not play the DVD's with any of those settings. Even though I haven't read anything about it, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that this IS a progressive scan DVD player with HDTV compatibility.

While I don't think the sound is any better than my old DVD player, it's just as good whether playing Dolby surround, Dolby Digital 5.1 or DTS.

While I was originally outrgaed at having to buy the ability to do something that I think the system should already be doing (and still do) I do feel like I got my money's worth. The Xbox DVD playback far surpasses the other DVD playing game systems and even most mid to low end DVD players. The reviewers that have said they preferred the PS2 DVD playback boggle my mind. They either don't own an XBox with the full get-up or are loyal PS2 owners and want it to be true. I own a PS2 and it's far inferior when playing DVD's. Not even in the same league in this particular category. The Xbox is still the best deal on the market and is only going to get better.

The XBOX uses the highly acclaimed Cinemaster DVD player, which should be far superior to the bug-plagued PS2 DVD player. Get this remote if you want to watch movies on your XBOX!

What is there to say about the XBox DVD kit? It works. It actually works as well as a ($) abaove average DVD player, so consider the kit a bargain. You're paying ($) plus ($) for a gaming console (worth at least $) and a better-than-decent DVD player (at least another $). The only gripe I have with it is not the XBox, but with the remote control itslef. It lacks a few standard features and just adds another control to my over crowded collection (TV, VCR, Stero, Cable Box). But here's a great solution. Just plug in RCA DVD Player codes into a universal remote, and *poof* just like that it operates the XBox. Try it.

I convinced my wife that we should get the Xbox because it can be used as a DVD player. I, of course, did not tell her that we would have to pay approximately [$] extra for the DVD movie player functionality.

Microsoft loses money on every Xbox sold. Their business model is to make their money back on their licensing fees from the games and the Xbox live service. That is why it cost extra for the DVD movie player kit. The price of the kit includes the licensing fee to the consortium that controls the DVD patent and the price of the hardware (remote and receiver).

The DVD player feature is quite nice. It plays smoothly and all the function buttons work well. The only reason I don't give the kit 5 stars is some DVD movies will not play in it but will play on the DVD player on my Mac Powerbook. The movie disc must be perfectly clean for it to play in the Xbox.

instead of spending $...put it toward a real DVD Player. The list of non-compatable DVD's is growing (call Microsoft ofr the latest list):
Lord of the Rings - expanded edition
Snow White
Golden Gun
Jumangi
Simpson's season 1
Star Wars - ep.1
Love&Liars
Major Mateadore
October
Kalifornia
Cliffhanger
Cable Guy - widescreen
Ronin - widescreen

Ok, kids, system loyalty or Microsoft hatred aside, this is a quality product. Yes, we all would have liked to have been able to watch DVD's without buying a remote. Nobody likes spending more money after shelling out the price of an Xbox. However, what some of you are'nt taking into account is that the Xbox is saving you money over the PS2 in other areas. Example: an included hard drive and ethernet port. Buying these things for a PS2 sure as heck is going to cost more than a remote for the Xbox. Last time a checked, PS2 memory cards cost as much as the Playback Kit, and guess what? You HAVE to buy a memory card with your PS2 if you wanna save anything. And as for the picture quality, it is MUCH better than the PS2 (and yes, I do have both, so I know what I'm talking about). If you don't already have a decent DVD player, just spend the money for this kit. If you're using a PS2 or a cheap player, this is definitely worth the cost.